Yes, seriously. Read again... why should someone who takes time off have it EASIER when it comes to gearing. As easy? Sure - do the same stuff as I did to get the same gear. Hell, I don't even care if they increase drop rates from the prior tier's LFR a bit. But *easier*? What the fuck is the rationale for making it actually a better gearing strategy to skip months at a time because when you come back you'll have some super easy way to gear? Lemme, guess, you don't have an answer which is why all you did was mouth off.

FYI, I've played since late Vanilla, so, you know, the whole thing about actively disliking playing just makes you sound like an idiot.

Why do you think Blizzard should "punish" players who take time off? In what possible way could that benefit anyone in a subscription game?

Anyone, that is, except for bitter old Vanilla curmudgeons who walked uphill both ways in the sand to Silithus.

If you enjoy playing the game, you will not find it a problem that you have something to do if you stay subscribed continually. If you enjoy playing the game, you won't want to drive returning players away by making their experience suck for them and then taunting them about it.

Can you run flex a limitless number of times per week? (even though you only get loot from the first run through) (this would also mean that you can guarantee getting the meta mount on the first week)

And also if your a 13/13 raider is it reasonable to expect a full clear of flex in the afternoon on launch day before normal raid time starts?

Most people would rather die than think, and most people do. -Bertrand RussellIdeas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns. Why should we let them have ideas? -Joseph Stalin

Why do you think Blizzard should "punish" players who take time off? In what possible way could that benefit anyone in a subscription game?

Anyone, that is, except for bitter old Vanilla curmudgeons who walked uphill both ways in the sand to Silithus.

If you enjoy playing the game, you will not find it a problem that you have something to do if you stay subscribed continually. If you enjoy playing the game, you won't want to drive returning players away by making their experience suck for them and then taunting them about it.

How is it a punishment? You do the exact same things everyone did before. Nobody is asking you to run tot lfr twice the amount.

Originally Posted by Venant

Can you run flex a limitless number of times per week? (even though you only get loot from the first run through) (this would also mean that you can guarantee getting the meta mount on the first week)

And also if your a 13/13 raider is it reasonable to expect a full clear of flex in the afternoon on launch day before normal raid time starts?

Why do you think Blizzard should "punish" players who take time off? In what possible way could that benefit anyone in a subscription game?

Anyone, that is, except for bitter old Vanilla curmudgeons who walked uphill both ways in the sand to Silithus.

If you enjoy playing the game, you will not find it a problem that you have something to do if you stay subscribed continually. If you enjoy playing the game, you won't want to drive returning players away by making their experience suck for them and then taunting them about it.

You're not very bright are you? Requiring someone who took time off to put in the same effort to get gear as someone who didn't take off any time is punishment... how? Oh and you STILL didn't answer my question. But then.... not the brightest bulb in the house.

You're not very bright are you? Requiring someone who took time off to put in the same effort to get gear as someone who didn't take off any time is punishment... how? Oh and you STILL didn't answer my question. But then.... not the brightest bulb in the house.

Requiring someone who took time off to put in the same amount of effort as someone who has been playing all along in order to catch up is horrible for the game.

It's horrible for the players who can't catch up to "what the cool folks are doing" and it's horrible to the cool folks because they can't find two more people who are geared for their 10 man raid. It's horrible for Blizzard because both groups of people become frustrated and quit.

If you are only playing the game to collect gear, and gearing is how you measure your success in the game, then ultimately WoW is not going to be that much fun for you, because gearing is not awesomely fun by itself. And anyway, gear is a tool, and a tool that's required to do things in the part of the game that focus is on these days (current level 90 content), and people who pay their $15/mo have a right to expect relatively "fair" access to the tools they need, to play the part of the game they expect to play.

I'm not sure why you chose to insult me instead of posting a thoughtful reply, but whatever.

The thing is, I don't think anyone can know now exactly what ilevel a pug will need to be reasonably successful in Flex, because no one knows the final numbers Blizzard will tune it to.

However, I think that in the case of a group of friends (who don't mind wiping a few times, just not 10 or 20 times per boss), who haven't done any normal mode content, Blizzard probably expects an average ilevel of 502-505. It's possible to hit 520 or higher without ever setting foot in normal mode but that's not the target audience.

Now, a pug will need better gear to compensate for the lack of friendliness and also the impatience with wipes that groups of quasi-strangers have. So, if a 502 group of beer-drinking buddies can clear the first wing of Flex, you will probably want 510-515, or even 520, from the group of impatient poorly socialized basement-dwellers.

However, I think that in the case of a group of friends (who don't mind wiping a few times, just not 10 or 20 times per boss), who haven't done any normal mode content, Blizzard probably expects an average ilevel of 502-505. It's possible to hit 520 or higher without ever setting foot in normal mode but that's not the target audience.

No way. Flex drops ilvl 540 loot.

And what do you mean the target audience doesn't have 520+ ilvl, or even implying they haven't set foot in normals. The target audience *is* doing normals at the moment.

I'm running a flex raid with my guild on the first night. Our guild has two raid teams who have cleared Lei Shen normal and done a couple heroics, and a bunch of people who have only done LFR or who haven't raided this expansion. I'm asking for everyone to bring their best-geared character on the first night, but I'm not going to require a minimum for our social members. I don't plan to exclude any social members. I figure to get 12-15 of our raiders and 5-10 non-raiders.

I'm not excluding anyone due to gear.

I think I'll let my experiences of the first week guide my decisions for second and subsequent weeks. I'll probably put a limit of once to carry a non-raider in low gear, and a limit of how many below-500s we'll carry. But part of the joy of flex is the guild's new ability to gear up someone's fresh alt. I don't want to throw that away, I may want that for myself some time.

Because three to four days for a FULL SET (one hour / one and a half per item) is too hard. Geez that's like heroic dungeon speed in acquiring items. Guess they should be available at a vendor which pays you to get them.

Because three to four days for a FULL SET (one hour / one and a half per item) is too hard. Geez that's like heroic dungeon speed in acquiring items. Guess they should be available at a vendor which pays you to get them.

No one who needs that gear is going to be getting a full set of it 4 days after release even on PvE servers.

Blizzard might figure that someone should be expected to pick up one piece of 535 before going into Flex, but that's about it.

Blizzard intends 502 per their PTR testing, but realistically I would expect group leaders to set requirements to hover around whatever it currently takes to get into ToT pugs on your server. This would be about 520 here.

I'm in a mix of normal ToT gear, ToT LFR and a couple of pieces from T14 (dont ask...). Not everything is upgraded, but a lot is and I'm 520.

500... I'm sorry, but if you're around 500 right now you're either very recently dinged or incredibly lazy since ToT has been out for 5 months and LFR gear from there is 502.

So, somewhere between 500 (lazy) and 520 (some experience in regular ToT probably) feels right as a minimum.

Lazy ? Having 9 toons between 500 and 510ilvl I don't see how I'm being lazy. Also I can guarantee I can out preform most people @ 520ilvl with all my characters. Pugs are hit and miss, on my server I know mostly who's good, and the rest will be trial and error I'm not going to reject people just because they're not 520ilvl+. How ever I will remember / blacklist people that are trash no matter the ilvl and not invite them in the future. Also let's be real a pug hardmode LFR is nothing compared to real pugging.